INTRODUCTION.
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first was the Bengal Annual, a collection of prose and verse that appeared on seven occasions between the years 1830 and 1836. To this work Indian and English authors contributed; and its pages make a delightful thesaurus of the outstanding names of the period. The second was the voluminous Selections from the British Poets. This compilation was undertaken at the suggestion of Macaulay and produced in 1840. Its chief interest lies in the anthology of British-Indian poetry—the first and best anthology of its kind—which the author compiled and added as an appendix to the major work.
It is pleasant to attempt to reconstruct the life of the Hindu College in these early years. The Hindu College.Its teachers were men of established literary reputation; and its patrons have written their names large upon the history of their age. There are frequent contemporary references to the quaint figure of David Hare, with long blue coat adorned by large brass buttons, moving through the class rooms, or attending the debates of the academic association. No less a personage than Thomas Babington Macaulay, who admitted that one of his compensations for exile in Calcutta was to hear Richardson read Shakespeare, has put on record his work done as an examiner for the Committee of Public Instruction. In the present age of conflicting pedagogic theories this makes curious reading. He speaks of examining on the texts of Shakespeare, Bacon, Cowley and Swift; and writes with characteristic absence of humour or hesitation—"I gave a subject for an essay, the comparative advantage of the study of poetry and the study of history." Whatever the Bengali students made of this majestic theme, there can be no doubt that, with Richardson for teacher and Macaulay for examiner, the atmosphere of their work was saturated with the literary
